Last month, I jumped into writing the first draft of my WIP (work-in-progress) with little planning. I figured that after doing this fourteen times, surely it had gotten easier and I could rely on my instincts.
It was like biting into an apple that I didn’t know was made of bronze.
So I spent the last few weeks walking and talking and thinking through my ideas, sculpting the thing in my head. I consulted my psychotherapist wife, Mikella, who is the brains behind anything worthy I’ve ever created, and the brilliant Nathan Van Coops, who understands story like few I’ve ever met.
I covered my whiteboard and created a deep Excel sheet and nearly blew up my Scrivener software with character and setting sheets and corkboard outline beats. I asked myself and the characters questions and figured out how they would change over the course of the story and what plot points would force that change. From the outside, I probably looked like a man in a straitjacket mumbling to himself.
I’ve done this level of planning for all my novels but had hoped this one would be different. I kept wondering if Pat Conroy or John Grisham or Fredrik Backman or Kristin Hannah or Jodi Picoult still had to prep like that. Or did they just sit down and let it flow? I suppose it doesn’t really matter. I just know what works for me.
Everyone always talks about plotting vs pantsing (writing by the seat of your pants like Stephen King). The argument for pantsing is that you get to enjoy discovering as you go. What I find, when I think through the novel ahead of time, is that I get the joy of discovering without having to sit in front of my keyboard. Writing isn’t always typing. As a caffeine-fueled American cliche of a man who feels guilty if I’m not getting in my word count, I have to remind myself of that fact.
*Writing isn’t always typing.*
Anyway, here’s a nod to that adage about measuring twice and cutting once. Doing this for a living, and trying to spit out one or two books a year, I just don’t have the luxury of going down a path and then realizing it’s not working and having to delete 30k words. And I don’t need to if I plan ahead. (Not that I don’t delete 50k words every project, but the reason is not that I went in the wrong direction; it’s that what I produced was literary sludge.)
And outlining certainly doesn’t limit your creativity. Though I have my story beats mapped out, I am wide open to surprises.
This prep work also serves to drive a stake into the heart of that bastard self-doubt gremlin who sits on my left shoulder. And whenever he’s silenced, the fun amps up.
Tomorrow, I start again, hacking away with a clearer vision. I will sit down, start my 25-minute Pomodoro timer to initiate my writing sprints, and let loose my imagination, knowing that this time I have a story compass in hand.
There are your writing thoughts for today. Bottom line, it doesn’t get any easier, and you should only ever write a book if it seizes you by the throat and won’t let go… because writing is hard.
